软银为何斥资320亿美元收购ARM

日本的软银集团（2016年世界500强排名：92）即将收购全球移动处理器领域最重要的企业——ARM控股集团。

ARM公司构建的处理器平台支撑着95%以上的智能手机运转（而英特尔从来没能把自己在桌面电脑领域的辉煌复制到智能手机领域）。无论你使用的移动设备是iPhone、iWatch，还是诺基亚旗下最便宜的机型，其内部一定置有ARM芯片。

这家只有25年历史的英国公司无需自己制造芯片——它只是设计处理器的结构，然后授权给诸如高通（Qualcomm）、三星（Samsung）和苹果（Apple）这样的公司

事实上，ARM的诞生源于苹果和Acorn的合作。Acorn是一家计算机公司，90年代初期，苹果Newton掌上电脑的内置核芯就是Acorn RISC处理器。

软银此次收购总额高达320亿美元。这家来自日本的电信巨头承诺将给这个旗下新成员带来前所未有的发展机遇。

周一，软银表示在接下来的五年内将使ARM公司在英国的员工总数至少扩大一倍，同时增加海外员工人数。ARM的商业模式、组织结构和高管团队则将保持不变。

ARM的总部仍将位于英格兰东部的剑桥市。正如英特尔和斯坦福大学（Stanford University）是硅谷的生命线一样，ARM和剑桥大学对于“硅沼泽”（Silicon Fen）的发展也起到了核心作用。英国的高科技产业聚集区“硅沼泽”的规模小于硅谷，但也孕育了大数据软件公司Autonomy（后来致使收购它的惠普公司陷入财务欺诈陷阱），以及蓝牙芯片公司CSR（现在归美国高通公司所有）。

当然，ARM未来的潜力不只在移动领域。由于它的处理器结构设计旨在将能耗降到最低（这对手机来说是必须的），所以很适合新兴的物联网领域——在这片广阔的新天地，日常设备都搭载有处理器和无线电，从而实现智能化并且可以接入互联网。

虽然围绕物联网的讨论已经不绝于耳，但物联网要达到智能手机的普及程度还有相当一段距离。尽管如此，日趋饱和的智能手机市场正在放缓增速，因此ARM等公司需要让产品更加多样化才行。

ARM在今年5月表示，第一季度出货的基于ARM架构的41亿个芯片中，超过半数是提供给非移动市场的——尽管在此期间移动市场贡献的专利费占到了ARM总专利费的三分之二。

软银CEO孙正义在周一的发言中明确谈到了他眼中ARM的价值所在。他说：“我们通过投资来抓住物联网带来的重大机遇，而ARM将完美地成为软银集团战略的一部分。这是我们迄今为止最重要的收购行动之一。”

软银表示不仅会为更多的ARM工程师进行投资，还会寻求补充收购，以保持ARM的研发优势。

ARM也丝毫没有放缓自身的并购步伐。仅去年一年，该公司就收购了物联网安全厂商Sansa和Offspark（该公司被视为以色列一个新研发集群的基础)、蓝牙技术公司Wicentric和Sunrise（将在通信领域支持ARM的物联网战略）、以及虚拟样机技术公司Carbon Design Systems。

ARM正在开发自己的物联网操作系统——mbed。其理念就是想让进入到这个领域的公司在选择ARM芯片时更为便捷，并且能够迅速安装好一个局域互联设备。

与此同时，软银上周宣布与物联网技术服务公司Aeris创办了一家合资企业。这家公司瞄准汽车等行业，将推动Aeris在日本、印度、欧洲和美国的网络和平台建设。

ARM这样的巨头在软银的这个宏伟战略中将发挥怎样的作用已不言而喻。

华威商学院（Warwick Business School）教授马克▪斯奇尔顿说：“ARM的此次行动承认了当前市场存在局限，需要通过投资来拓展到个人电脑和手机之外的领域，包括家用电器、建筑、汽车以及物联网中的其他新兴平台。”

“这就需要更有实力的金主，去实现对这些市场的开拓……电信公司遭遇了一个有意思的挑战——将关键网络粘合到所有这些设备和服务上，通过相似的发送设备终端整合来寻求更多的市场份额。”

正如有些人说的，由于英国脱欧造成英镑贬值，软银收购ARM的时机可谓幸运。

当然，英国政府正在因为这个脱欧后的好消息而雀跃。财政大臣菲利普•哈蒙德说道：“全民公决后的三个星期就可以看出，英国对于国际投资者的吸引力丝毫没有降低。

哈蒙德还称，这次收购是亚洲在英国最大的一次投资，将使ARM这家英国公司全球闻名。

不管从任何意义上来说，ARM确实已经因此闻名于全球。如果软银能打好这张牌，如果物联网能如预期发展，那么ARM的地位将变得比今天还更加重要。

Acorn联合创始人赫曼•豪萨参与了ARM的出售事宜，他对此次交易并不满意:

“ARM是我生命中最值得骄傲的成就。对我个人和英国的科技界来说，将ARM卖给软银是件伤心的事情。”(财富中文网)

译者：刘伟义

SoftBank’s impending takeover of ARM Holdings means the Japanese firm is buying the most important company in the world of mobile processors.

ARM’s processor designs power more than 95 percent of the smartphones out there (Intel has never been able to replicate its desktop success in this space). From the iPhone and AppleWatch down to the cheapest Nokia phone out there, you can be pretty sure that your mobile device has an ARM-based chip inside.

The 25-year-old British company has the crucial advantage of not having to make its own chips—it just designs the processor architecture and licenses it to companies such as Qualcomm, Samsung and Apple.

In fact, ARM’s genesis dates back to the collaboration between Apple and Acorn, the computer company whose Acorn RISC Machine (ARM) processor powered Apple’s Newton personal digital assistant in the early 1990s.

The SoftBank deal is worth around $32 billion, and the Japanese communications conglomerate is promising to make its new baby flourish like never before.

SoftBank said Monday that it would at least double ARM’s U.K. headcount and to grow its employee numbers outside the country over the next five years. The business model will stay the same, as will the company’s organizational structure and senior management.

ARM’s headquarters will remain in Cambridge, in the east of England. Much as Intel and Stanford University have been essential to Silicon Valley, ARM and the University of Cambridge have been central in the development of the smaller “Silicon Fen”—a cluster that also gave birth to big data outfit Autonomy (disastrously purchased by Hewlett-Packard) and Bluetooth chip firm CSR (now owned by Qualcomm).

Of course, ARM’s potential future does not just lie in mobile. Because the company’s architecture is designed to use as little power as possible (a must-have in phones), it is also well-placedfor the nascent Internet of things—the new world of everyday devices that have processors and radios embedded in them to give them some smarts and connect them with the Internet.

While the Internet of things has a lot of buzz about it, it still has yet to reach the ubiquity enjoyed by smartphones. That said, smartphone growth is slowing as the market saturates, and companies such as ARM need to diversify.

In May, ARM said more than half of the 4.1 billion ARM-based chips that shipped in the first quarter of this year had been for non-mobile markets—though mobile did account for two-thirds of ARM’s royalties for the period.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son was clear in his Monday statement about where he sees ARM’s value. “ARM will be an excellent strategic fit within the SoftBank group as we invest to capture the very significant opportunities provided by the Internet of things,” he said. “This is one of the most important acquisitions we have ever made.”

SoftBank said it would not only invest in more engineers for ARM, but also look for “complementary acquisitions” to maintain the firm’s “R&D edge.”

ARM has recently been no slouch on this front anyway. Last year alone it bought Internet-of-things security firms Sansa (which it is using as the basis for a new development hub in Israel) and Offspark, Bluetooth technology companies Wicentric and Sunrise (which will again aid its Internet-of-things efforts on the communications side), and virtual-prototyping outfit Carbon Design Systems.

The British company is developing its own operating system for the Internet of Things, called mbed. The idea here is to make it easier for companies entering the space to pick up an ARM-based chip and quickly set up a working connected device.

SoftBank, meanwhile, last week announced a joint venture with Internet-of-things technology and services company Aeris. The joint venture will push Aeris’s network and platform in Japan, India, Europe and the U.S., targeting markets such as the automotive industry.

It’s not hard to see how a big beast such as ARM will fit into such a strategy.

“This move by ARM is recognition of the limits of this current market and the need to invest to expand beyond PC and mobile into the multitude of consumer home, building, car and other platforms emerging in the Internet of things,” said Mark Skilton, a professor at Warwick Business School.

“This needs bigger pockets to take on completion to scale these markets…Telecoms companies have had an interesting challenge to position the vital network ‘glue’ to connect all these devices and services, but seek a bigger part of the market share through similar integration into the delivery device end.”

As some have noted, SoftBank’s timing on the ARM acquisition has been fortunate, thanks to the impact of the Brexit vote on the pound.

The British government, of course, is leaping on this spot of good post-Brexit news. “Just three weeks after the referendum decision, it shows that Britain has lost none of its allure to international investors,” said chancellor of the exchequer Philip Hammond.

Hammond also said the deal—the largest-ever investment from Asia in the U.K.—would “turn this great British company into a global phenomenon.”

It already is that, by any measure. Though if SoftBank plays its cards right, and if the Internet of things explodes as predicted, ARM could indeed become even more important than it already is.

Acorn co-founder Hermann Hauser, who was partly responsible for spinning out ARM, is not happy with the deal:

ARM is the proudest achievement of my life. The proposed sale to SoftBank is a sad day for me and for technology in Britain.